Rivera to make first (and last) trip to Petco

New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera acknowledges fans as he leaves the field after a baseball game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, Thursday, July 25, 2013. New York won 2-0. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)
— AP

New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera acknowledges fans as he leaves the field after a baseball game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas, Thursday, July 25, 2013. New York won 2-0. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)
/ AP

Tyson Ross remembers watching Mark Kotsay on television. Ross was in high school then. Kotsay was playing for Ross’ hometown Oakland Athletics.

Now Ross’ teammate on the Padres, Kotsay remembers facing Mariano Rivera, live and in-person, each encounter a tribute to greatness.

“He’s the best pitcher I’ve ever faced,” said Kotsay, who over his career is 0-for-7 with two strikeouts against Rivera.

This weekend Ross, Kotsay and Rivera will take the same field when the Yankees make their first-ever visit to Petco Park. Those three players are ages 26, 37 and 43, respectively.

“It’s cool that the game bridges the gap between generations,” said Ross, who will start the second of a three-game series that begins Friday. “These guys can still do it. That’s why they’re still in the big leagues.”

Of the grizzled veterans Ross referenced, Rivera, in particular, can still do it — still relying, almost exclusively, on that malicious cut fastball, the greatest pitch of the greatest reliever of all time.

He’s doing it as well as ever, too, the late movement on the pitch continuing to shatter bats and batters’ resolves alike.

Rivera’s 1.60 earned-run average is his lowest in five years. His 34 saves are second-most in the majors in this, his final season.

Indeed, Rivera’s first trip to Petco Park will also be his last. His farewell tour around the majors resumes Friday, when the Padres will salute the retiring closer in a pregame ceremony. Trevor Hoffman, once the holder of the all-time saves record, will present Rivera, who broke that record, with a retirement gift from the Padres.

The gift is of yet unknown, though it likely won’t be a surfboard. Rivera received one from the Athletics when he made his last stop in Oakland.

“I don’t know if we can double up,” said Padres manager Bud Black, “even though that’s sort of what we do.”

Arguments about surf supremacy aside, the buzz surrounding Rivera will undoubtedly rule the weekend at Petco Park. He, along with Derek Jeter, remains the face of a franchise that oozes aura.

“I mean, the Yankees are … the Yankees,” said Will Venable, who attended Princeton University, about 60 miles from the old Yankee Stadium. “Mariano and Jeter, those guys literally set the standard for big leaguers.”

Rivera and Jeter have won five World Series titles, including in 1998, when the Yankees swept Andy Ashby and the Padres.

Ashby, who started Game 2 of that series, is now a Fox Sports San Diego studio analyst for Padres games.

“We don’t have the best of memories with the Yankees,” Ashby said, “but you know what? Just being there in the World Series with the Yankees was awesome.

“That was a heck of a team. They came in to Jack Murphy (Stadium), they’re in the World Series and they wanted to win, same way we did. We just ran into a team that was on fire and a very good ballclub.”

The Yankees have since fallen from their championship-winning days. They are hovering just above .500 this season, in fourth place in the American League East. Nine players are floundering on the disabled list, including the likely-to-be-suspended Alex Rodriguez, who may have played his last game in a Yankee uniform.

But as Venable put it, the Yankees are still, after all, the Yankees. And two of their all-time greats remain in uniform.

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss that,” Jerry Coleman, venerated Padres radio man and former Yankee, said of Rivera’s Petco Park introduction and farewell. “We had the same number, you know.”

Sometime this weekend, before a sellout crowd in downtown San Diego, Rivera will likely trot out to the mound, that famous “42” emblazoned across his back. He’ll throw a cutter, then another, then another. It’s a decent bet that no Padres batter will make solid contact.

“I’ve tried everything against him,” Kotsay said. “Nothing’s worked.

“I’m just hoping I get a shot at him.”

Then again, some hope it never gets to that point.

“I hope I see Mariano in the bullpen, not on the field,” Black said with a smile. “I hope I see him shagging batting practice, but I hope we don’t see him on the field, unless he just needs to get an inning of work in.”